by Rumer Godden
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Notes
Chapter 1
They were two little Japanese dolls, only about five inches high. Their faces and hands were made of white plaster, their bodies of rag, which meant they could bow most beautifully – and Japanese people bow a great deal. Their eyes were slits of black glass and they had delicate plaster noses and red-painted mouths. Their hair was real, black and straight and cut in a fringe. They were exactly alike except that Miss Flower was a little taller and thinner, while Miss Happiness’s cheeks were fatter and her red mouth was painted in a smile.
They wore thin cotton kimonos – a kimono is like a dressing-gown with wide-cut sleeves – and they each had a wide sash high up under their arms which was folded over into a heavy pad at the back.
Miss Happiness had a red kimono patterned with chrysanthemums, Miss Flower’s was blue with a pattern of cherry blossom; both their sashes were pink and on their feet they had painted white socks and painted sandals with a V-shaped strap across the toes.
They were not new: Miss Flower had a chip out of one ear, her pretty kimono was torn and the paint had come off one of Miss Happiness’s shoes. I do not know where they had been all their lives, but when this story begins they had been wrapped in cotton wool and tissue paper, packed in a wooden box and tied with red and white string, wrapped again in brown paper, labelled and stamped and sent all the way from San Francisco in America to England. I do not think they had been asked if they wanted to come – dolls are not asked.
‘Where are we now?’ asked Miss Flower. ‘Is it another country?’
‘I think it is,’ said Miss Happiness.
‘It’s strange and cold. I can feel it through the box,’ said Miss Flower, and she cried, ‘No one will understand us or know what we want. Oh, no one will ever understand us again!’
But Miss Happiness was more hopeful and more brave. ‘I think they will,’ she said.
‘How will they?’
‘Because there will be some little girl who is clever and kind.’
‘Will there be?’ asked Miss Flower longingly.
‘Yes.’
‘Why will there be?’
‘Because there always has been,’ said Miss Happiness.
All the same, Miss Flower gave a doll shiver, which means she felt as if she shivered though it could not be seen. Miss Flower was always frightened; perhaps the child who made the chip in her ear had been rough. ‘I wish we had not come,’ said Miss Flower.
Miss Happiness sighed and said, ‘We were not asked.’
Children are not asked either. No one had asked Nona Fell if she wanted to be sent from India to live with her uncle and aunt in England. Everyone had told her she would like it, but ‘I don’t like it at all,’ said Nona.
‘Nona is a good name for her,’ said her youngest cousin, Belinda. ‘All she does is to say No, no, no, all the time.’
With her dark hair and eyes, her thinness, and her skin that was pale and yellow from living so long in the heat, Nona looked a stranger among her pink-cheeked, fair-haired cousins. There were three of them: Anne, who was fourteen, slim and tall; Tom, who was eleven, with freckles; and Belinda, who was a rough tough little girl of seven.
Nona was eight. Her mother had died when she was a baby and she had been brought up by an old Ayah – an Ayah is an Indian nurse – on her father’s tea garden, Coimbatore in Southern India. It had been hot in Coimbatore, the sun had shone almost every day; there had been bright flowers and fruit, kind brown people and lots of animals. Here it was winter and Nona was always cold. Her cousins laughed at her clothes; it was no wonder, for they had been chosen by old Ayah who had no idea what English children wore in England, and Nona had a stiff red velvet dress, white socks, black strap shoes and silver bangles. They laughed at the way she spoke English, which was no wonder either, for she talked in a sing-song voice like Ayah.
She did not like the food; living in a hot country does not make one hungry and she had not seen porridge, or puddings, or sausages, or buns before, and ‘No thank you,’ said Nona. She said ‘No thank you’ too when anyone asked her to go out for she had never seen so many buses and cars, vans and bicycles; they went so fast it made her dizzy. She said ‘No thank you’ when her cousins asked her to play; there had been no other English boys and girls in Coimbatore and she had never ridden a bicycle, or roller-skated, or played ping-pong, or rounders, or hide and seek, or even card games like Snap or Beggar-my-neighbour. All she did was to sit and read in a corner or stand by the window and shiver. ‘And cry,’ said Belinda. ‘Cry, baby, cry.’
‘Belinda, be kind,’ said Nona’s aunt, who was Belinda’s mother. Nona called her Mother too. ‘Be kind. We must all help her to settle down.’
‘I don’t want her to settle down,’ said Belinda.
All through Christmas Nona was unhappy and when Christmas was over it was no better. She stood by the window and ran her bangles up and down her wrist, up and down and round and round. They were thin and of Indian silver; she had had them since she was almost a baby and to feel them made her seem closer to Coimbatore.
‘Come to the park, Nona. We’re going to skate.’
‘No thank you.’
‘I’m going to the shops, Nona. Come along.’
‘No thank you.’
‘Have some of this nice hot toast.’
‘No thank you.’
At last Mother spoke to her seriously. ‘You really must try to be happier, Nona. You’re not the only small person to come from far away.’
‘I’m the only one here,’ said Nona.
At that moment the bell pinged and the postman’s rat-tat sounded at the door, and ‘You go,’ said Mother.
When Nona opened the front door the postman gave her a brown paper parcel. It had American stamps, it felt like a box and was very light. I wonder if you can guess what it was.
Nona took the parcel from the postman and brought it to Mother. Written on it was ‘The Misses Fell’. ‘It’s for Anne and Belinda,’ said Nona.
‘It might be for you as well,’ said Mother. ‘You are a Miss Fell.’
‘Am I?’ asked Nona in surprise.
‘Don’t you know your own name, stupid?’ asked Belinda.
Nona shook her head. Ayah used to call her Little Missy, but no one in Coimbatore had called her Miss Fell.
‘It’s from your Great-Aunt Lucy Dickinson,’ said Mother, looking at the writing. ‘It must be a late Christmas present.’
‘A late Christmas present! A late Christmas present!’ shouted Belinda, and she shouted for Anne to come.
‘Undo it, Nona,’ said Tom.
‘Why should Nona . . .?’ began Belinda.
‘Because I said so,’ said Tom in such a terrible voice that Belinda was quiet.
Nona took off the brown paper and found the wooden box with the red and white strings. ‘Cut them,’ said Belinda impatiently, but Nona’s small fingers untied the bow and the knot and carefully smoothed out the strings. ‘Oh, you are slow!’ said Belinda.
‘She’s not, she’s careful,’ said Tom.
Nona lifted the lid and carefully, perhaps even more carefully than usual because Tom had praised her, she unrolled the cotton wool and tissue paper, and there on the table, looking very small and cold and white, lay Miss Happiness and Miss Flower.
‘What queer little dolls,’ said Belinda, disappointed, and Nona answered, ‘They’re not queer. They’re Japanese.’
You can imagine how frightened and lost Miss Happiness and Miss Flow
er felt when they found themselves on the big slippery table. They had to lie there looking up into the faces of Nona and Belinda. If Nona and Belinda had been Japanese children, one of them, Miss Flower was sure, would have made her and Miss Happiness bow. ‘We can’t even be polite,’ said Miss Flower in despair, and she cried, ‘Can one of these be the kind and clever girl?’
‘Wish that she may be,’ said Miss Happiness. ‘Wish.’ As I have often told you before, wishes are very powerful things, even dolls’ wishes, and as Miss Happiness wished, Nona put out a finger and very gently stroked Miss Flower’s hair. Her finger felt the chip, and ‘You poor little doll,’ said Nona.
‘They’re not even new,’ said Belinda in disgust. ‘Stupid old Great-Aunt Lucy Dickinson,’ and in a temper she began to crumple up the wrappings. Then she stopped. She had found a piece of paper written on in spidery old-fashioned writing. Mother read it out. It was from Great-Aunt Lucy Dickinson. ‘I send you with my love,’ wrote Great-Aunt Lucy Dickinson, ‘Miss Happiness, Miss Flower and Little Peach.’ ‘Happiness and Flower,’ said Mother. ‘What pretty names.’1
‘Peach is the one I like best,’ said Belinda. ‘But where is Little Peach?’
‘Was there no other doll in the parcel?’ asked Anne.
‘No. There were only two, not three.’
‘Nothing in the wrappings?’
‘No.’
‘In the cotton wool or tissue paper?’
‘Nothing.’
It was very odd. There was no sign of Little Peach. ‘And he is the one I would have liked best,’ mourned Belinda.
‘Never mind,’ said Mother. ‘Anne is too big for dolls so there is one each for you and Nona.’
‘They have been a long time getting here,’ said Anne, looking at the postmark on the brown paper. ‘Poor little things, spending Christmas in a parcel.’
‘They don’t mind about Christmas,’ said Nona quickly.
It was strange how Nona seemed to know about these little dolls. ‘You have never been to Japan,’ said Belinda rudely.
That was true, but, like Miss Happiness and Miss Flower, Nona had come from far away, and could feel for them. ‘Perhaps,’ said Miss Flower, ‘she might be the kind and clever girl.’
‘Why shouldn’t they mind about Christmas?’ argued Belinda.
‘They don’t have Christmas in Japan.’
‘Don’t be silly.’
‘I’m not silly. They don’t.’
‘What do they have then?’
Nona was not sure but, as you know, she was always reading, and it seemed to her that in some story about Japanese children or in a geography book she had read . . . What did I read? thought Nona, wrinkling up her forehead to try and remember. Then, ‘They have a Star Festival,’ she said.
‘A Star Festival?’
‘Yes,’ said Nona. They were all looking at her and she blushed and stammered, though she remembered more clearly now. ‘S-something to do with the stars, t-two stars,’ she said. ‘I think they are the spirits of two people who loved each other long, long ago, a thousand years ago, and were separated. Now they are up in two stars each side of the M-milky Way, and one night each year they can cross and meet.’
‘Across the Milky Way?’ said Anne. ‘How pretty.’
‘Yes,’ said Nona again, and now her eyes shone so that she, too, looked almost pretty. ‘And on earth that night children – grown-up people as well, but mostly children – write wishes on pieces of coloured paper and tie them outside on the bamboos, all over Japan,’ she said, her eyes shining.
They looked at her in surprise. ‘Why, Nona’, said Mother, ‘you seem a different child when you tell a story like that.’
‘I didn’t know you could,’ said Anne. ‘It’s a beautiful story.’
‘Jolly clever to remember it like that,’ said Tom.
‘It comes of reading,’ said Father. ‘That’s what I’m always telling you children. Good girl, Nona.’
He gave Nona a pat on the head and Nona felt so pleased that she smiled at him quite like a happy little girl, but Belinda was not pleased at all.
Belinda was the youngest and she had always been Father’s pet, and Tom’s and Anne’s; she did not like it when they praised Nona. ‘You needn’t think you’re so clever,’ she said to Nona when everyone else had gone. ‘You can’t do anything but read . . . and cry, cry-baby. They only say you’re clever because you were so stupid before.’
Nona did not answer but the happy look faded from her face.
‘Why did you come here?’ asked Belinda. The more she talked the angrier she grew. ‘Why did you have to come? We don’t want you. Why don’t you go home? Why don’t you have a house and a family of your own?’
Nona still did not answer.
‘Star Festival! Rubbish!’ shouted Belinda.
‘It isn’t rubbish,’ said Nona in a hard little voice; now she was pale again and her eyes blazed, but Belinda did not see; she had flung out of the room.
When Nona was alone she went and stood by the window and presently a tear splashed down on the window-sill, then another and another. A home and a family of your own . . . ‘Coimbatore, old Ayah,’ whispered Nona, and the tears came thick and fast.
I do not know how long Nona stood there by the window, but the room, and then the garden, grew dark. She could hear the others talking in the playroom and Mother singing in the kitchen, but she stood there in the dark room staring out of the window.
I wish I could go home, thought Nona. I wish I could see my own father. I wish I could see Ayah. I wish . . . Now the wish was so big that it seemed to run out of her right up into the sky, and . . . ‘Why, the stars are out!’ said Nona.
Across the garden she could see the shapes of trees, bare against the sky, and above them and behind them were stars, bright because of the frosty winter dark. There was a glass door into the garden and Nona opened it and stepped outside. It was so cold that it made her catch her breath, but now she could see the whole night sky. There’s the Milky Way, thought Nona – her own father had often showed it to her – and she wondered which of the stars were the two that held the people in love.
By the glass door there was a little tree. It was not a bamboo, of course, but as she looked at it Nona’s face suddenly grew determined and she came in and shut the door.
She switched on the light, and taking a piece of paper and a pencil from Mother’s desk – ‘Without even asking,’ said Belinda afterwards – she tore the paper into narrow strips and began to write. ‘I wish I could go home,’ wrote Nona through more tears. ‘I wish I had never come.’ ‘I wish I was back in Coimbatore.’ ‘I wish I had a house of my own.’ ‘I wish there wasn’t a Belinda.’ She took a piece of cotton from Mother’s work-basket, cut it into short bits and threaded one through each of her papers, and rolled them up tightly so that no one could read them. There was a blazer belonging to Tom in the basket, waiting to be mended; Nona slipped it on and went out and tied her wishes on the tree.
It seemed to help her unhappiness to put the wishes on the tree and she went back to write some more, but she had said all there was to say. The Japanese dolls were lying close by her elbow and now she looked down at them. The light caught their eyes so that they shone up at her. I believe they like tying wishes on the tree, thought Nona. Of course, it’s their Star Festival.
‘Our Star Festival!’ said Miss Happiness and Miss Flower.
It was not, of course, the right night, but that did not seem to matter. Nona took another piece of paper and cut that up, then ran into the playroom and quietly fetched her paint-box and a cup of water; then she painted the new strips in colours, red and green and blue and yellow. When they were dry she began to write again.
‘What is she doing?’ whispered Miss Flower.
‘Writing wishes.’
‘I wish she would write some for us.’
Nona began to cut the strips into smaller, narrower ones.
‘What is she doing now?’
�
�Writing wishes.’
‘But such tiny ones. Do you suppose . . .?’ asked Miss Flower – she hardly dared say it – ‘suppose they are for us?’
‘They are for us,’ said Miss Happiness, and Miss Flower cried, ‘Wishes for the River of Heaven!’ which is what Japanese people call the Milky Way.2
Next morning Anne was the first to look out of the window and see the little tree covered with wishes. How pretty they looked with their colours! Nona had found some tinsel left over from Christmas and put that on too, and had cut out some paper flowers. ‘Why, Nona!’ said Anne, ‘how lovely!’ Then she looked again and asked, ‘Isn’t it . . .? Yes, it is. Look,’ she called to the others. ‘Oh, do come and see. Nona has made a Star Festival all by herself.’
‘But not on bamboos,’ said Nona. ‘You haven’t any.’
‘But lots of wishes,’ said Anne.
‘Lots of wishes,’ whispered Miss Happiness and Miss Flower. They knew what the wishes were.
‘Rolled up like secrets,’ said Tom.
‘They are secrets,’ said Nona quickly. She was beginning to feel ashamed of some of them. ‘Secrets,’ she said again.
‘Secrets!’ sighed Miss Happiness and Miss Flower. They would have liked everyone to read them. ‘Because we do want to go home,’ they said. ‘We do want a house of our own. We do wish Miss Nona could look after us. It’s a pity they have to be secrets.’ But the wishes were secret no longer; Belinda had slipped out into the garden and was pulling them off the tree. When she had read some she came in and slammed the door.
‘How dare you!’ shouted Belinda at Nona. ‘They’re my dolls as much as yours,’ and she snatched them up. ‘Mother said so,’ shouted the furious Belinda.
Two days ago Nona would have let Belinda take the dolls; she would have gone away by herself and read or stood looking out of the window, but she could not bear to see the way Miss Flower hung limply in Belinda’s rough little hand. ‘Don’t! You’re hurting them,’ she cried.
‘They’re only dolls,’ said Belinda, more angry than ever, and she cried, ‘All right. They want a house. They can go in my dolls’ house.’
‘House? Did she say house?’ asked poor squeezed Miss Flower.
